Collegues and friends!
It is indeed an exceptional honor to receive the International Contribution Award from JPGU. I apologize for not being able to receive the award in person. This is the first time, excepting COVID-19 time, I have been unable to attend the JPGU meeting in person since 2014, but sometimes circumstances outside my control caused this to happen.
As I understand it, this award is given for contributions to Japanese geoscience activities. It is so much more appreciated for work that I always looked forward to when visiting Japan. From the Japanese immigration stamps in my passports since first coming to Japan around 1980, there have been more than 50 visits over the last45 years or so.
These visits began when I first came to the Geophysical Laboratory as graduate student in late 1972. At that time, Kushiro-sensei was a staff member here. He became my advisor as a graduate students and subsequently as a Carnegie Fellow. At about that time, he returned to Japan to joining the faculty at the University of Tokyo and started to send young Japanese graduates including Fujii-sensei, Takahashi-sensei, and Nagahara-sensei with whom I was actively involved.
I maintained close contacts with Japan following the appointment of Kushiro-sensei as Director of what now known as Institute for Planetary Materials (a part of Okayama University) and got involved with not only science but also more administrative activities. Sadly, I never developed an attachment to the onsen for which Misasa is well known.
My involvements in administrative matters expanded rapidly a few years later when the opportunity arose to spend time at the Graduate School of Science at Tohoku University where Ohtani-sensei and his colleagues made every effort to make me feel welcome. He got me actively involved with both science and adjoining matters such as participating the birth and development of the JPGU journal "Proceedings and Earth and Planetary Science". I still am. It was those relationships that also got me into helping in a small way with organizing a symposium almost every year during the annual meeting of JPGU. I am very pleased to see that this continues.
In summary, my many connections with Japan hopefully have been of some help. I know that these greatly improved my own scientific and administrative activities. The International Contribution Award is icing on the cake, as we say. It is much appreciated.
THANK YOU!